Community Knowledge Management System

Abstract

A web-based Community Knowledge System (CKS), including member community features, content management system features and custom features for specific lines of business or industries.

I claim: 
     
         1 . A computer-implemented method of a knowledge management system shared by a plurality of users for the purpose of creating meaningful connections between the users and sharing one or more knowledge resources, wherein each knowledge resource is associated with one or more shared taxonomies recognized by the plurality of users as the authority for an aspect of knowledge shared by members of a group formed by the plurality of users, comprising:
 a) receiving a request by at least one of the plurality of users to create one ore more shared taxonomies, the shared taxonomies each having one or more nodes, each node having zero or more classes associated with the node for the purpose of associating metadata with the nodes and each node having a content region which may contain HTML or text content along with zero or more modules associated with the node for the purpose of associating knowledge resources specific to each module with the node where knowledge resources associated with each module are referred to for the purposes of describing the knowledge resources as items, and wherein such items each represent a knowledge object and these items are associated with the module as well as with the node either directly or indirectly by virtue of being associated with a module which is associated with the node;   b) receiving one or more requests by one or more of the users to modify the structure of one or more of the shared taxonomies, the request being allowed or disallowed based on rules defined by the knowledge management system;   c) receiving a request by one or more of the plurality of users to associate one or more knowledge resources with one or more nodes in the taxonomy, each knowledge resource being maintained as an item associated with a module;   d) receiving a request by one or more of the plurality of users to retrieve data from one or more knowledge resources associated with one or more modules related to a specific node in the taxonomy; and   e) receiving a request to have a knowledge resource added to the system, the request being mapped to a node in the system even when that node may have been renamed or moved within the system, this mapping being enabled by an identifier related to each node in the system which is designed to be immutable for the life of the node in the system.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request to view an aggregate version of knowledge resources related to one or more modules which are associated with one or more of the children of a specific node. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request to limit the presentation of knowledge resources within the knowledge management system based on a filter of the knowledge resources maintained in the system which is defined by a user using an interface connected to a computing device to select one or more modules to be used as the basis for the filter. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1  wherein requests which are received by the knowledge management system to alter the structure of one or more of the shared taxonomies are restricted to two types of nodes which are defined as either things or categories of things, with a default assignment of categories of things to any nodes which are created in the system without specifying the default type of node to be used and with each such category containing zero or more sub-types. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request by one or more of the plurality of users to assign 1 or more classes with a node, each class comprising data and possibly behavior in the form of template which contain predefined data related to the fields which are tracked for the particular class, the data being saved in a format which allows the data related to a subset of related classes to be shown to the user in aggregate form, the aggregation being determined based on at least one of the following: nodes with the same name, linked nodes, nodes sharing the same parent in the hierarchy of the taxonomy and nodes which are related through a related nodes collection maintained by the knowledge management system. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request handled by the system for all data related to one or more of the modules available in the knowledge management system, the interfaces of the system being designed to return information which highlights the location in the shared taxonomy where items related to the selected modules have been associated with taxonomy nodes, a representation depicting all the nodes in the taxonomy and using formatting or images to convey said locations within the taxonomy, the formatting being used to denote one or more of the following: nodes which only contain child nodes which contain items related to the selected modules and nodes which immediately contain items related to the selected modules 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request to associate a new node in the taxonomy where the new node already exists in the knowledge management system, where the process of linking the existing node under a separate parent node in the taxonomy allows the system to return information which may be conveyed based on the existence of the node in more than one place in the taxonomy. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request sent to the knowledge management system where pingback and trackback technologies are used to make it easy for members to associate knowledge resources such as blog posts with content in the shared taxonomy using existing blogging tools. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request for a node in the system using a code which uniquely identifies the node, where the code is short enough in length to be easily remembered by the plurality of users of the system and where the code can be added to the end of a known domain and path and combined with a web addressable protocol to create a short URL which uniquely identifies the location of web-enabled resources related to the node such as: a web page showing content related to the node or a web services API designed to return information about the node. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request made to add a new node to the shared taxonomy where the request is entered as text using a common syntax used for creating new pages in a wiki, the syntax being extended to allow the following information to be conveyed in the textual request to create the node: position of the new node relative to the node where the text is being entered in the main content region related to the node. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a request to retrieve a list of users associated with a particular aspect of knowledge as associated with one or more shared taxonomy nodes, that request being processed and the resulting data being returned based on data associated with the one or more nodes including but not limited to: authors related to the node, users who have contributed module items related to the node or any of the child nodes, users who have left comment related to the nodes and users who have associate themselves with the nodes using a module such as a related users module 
     
     
         12 . A computing device containing instructions which can be executed on one or more processors which is designed to produce a community knowledge system designed to provide context for community knowledge of various types comprising;
 a) A shared, hierarchical mechanism for categorizing information called a grouponomy, wherein each node in the hierarchy represents some aspect of knowledge to be tracked by the system which is uniquely identifiable and attached to resources of a variety of types;   b) A mechanism for associating resources to a node in the hierarchy whereby said mechanism for associating resources is initiated by the act of referencing an URL or unique identifier designed specifically for said node and whereby the result of said mechanism for associating resources is an association of said node to said resource which provides context to said resource for members of the community who are able to access said community knowledge system;   c) A mechanism which associates zero or 1 content regions with each node added to the grouponomy;   d) A mechanism which allows zero or more modules to be associated with each node in the grouponomy, where each module contains items which represent discrete knowledge resource objects including but not limited to: documents, images, videos, links, surveys, discussion threads, related users, thesaurus terms and other possible examples of modules listed in the detailed description of the invention;   e) A mechanism which allows members, possibly a select group, of the community around which the grouponomy nodes are shared to contribute to the content and structure of the grouponomy by managing the nodes and the types assigned to each node whether it is a category or a thing or a subtype of one of these two;   f) A set of 1 or more tools designed to allow members of the community to assign knowledge resources to one or more nodes in said hierarchical table of contents;   g) A mechanism for members of said community knowledge system to view aggregated information from modules which are related to nodes, thereby allowing members to have access to aggregated information for all nodes in the grouponomy which contain children and which contain modules which support aggregation;   h) A system for maintaining the identity of a node in the grouponomy forever and for the identity of that node to remain, even being merged with other nodes, or being split into two separate nodes;   i) A mechanism for members, possibly a select group of said community, to manage 0 or more grouponomies;   j) A mechanism for members of said community to manage 0 or more classes of nodes in the hierarchy where classes provide a way of keeping track of a specific type of data defined by one or more fields for entering and storing data;   k) A mechanism for members of said community to manage 0 or more classes related to a particular node in the system in such as way as to associate data that can be stored with a class to a particular node; and   l) A mechanism for members of said community to manage, with appropriate levels of access the nodes that appear in the grouponomy or grouponomies managed by the system.   
     
     
         13 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein new nodes are added to a shared taxonomy through a request which is entered as text in the main content region of the node using a common syntax used for creating new pages in a wiki, the syntax being extended to allow the following information to be conveyed in the textual request to create the node: position of the new node relative to the node where the text is being entered in the main content region related to the node. 
     
     
         14 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein a request can be made for a node in the system using a code which uniquely identifies the node, where the code is short enough in length to be easily remembered by the plurality of users of the system and where the code can be added to the end of a known domain and path and combined with a web addressable protocol to create a short URL which uniquely identifies the location of web-enabled resources related to the node such as: a web page showing content related to the node or a web services API designed to return information about the node. 
     
     
         15 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein a request can be sent to the knowledge management system where pingback and trackback technologies are used to make it easy for members to associate knowledge resources such as blog posts with content in the shared taxonomy using existing blogging tools. 
     
     
         16 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein a request can be processed to retrieve a list of users associated with a particular aspect of knowledge as associated with one or more shared taxonomy nodes, that request being processed and the resulting data being returned based on data associated with the nodes including but not limited to: authors related to the node, users who have contributed module items related to the node or any of the child nodes, users who have left comments related to the nodes and users who have associated themselves with the node using a module such as a related users module. 
     
     
         17 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein content can be discovered by the system inside external systems and resources based on the existence of one or more URLs which have been created either using a rel attribute of an anchor tag or through the existence of QueryStrings in such one or more URLs which provide the information necessary for the community knowledge system to determine that the resource should be associated with one or more nodes in the grouponomy if the association is not already made. 
     
     
         18 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein a view is available for each module available in the community knowledge system that view making it possible for users of the system to quickly identify all of the nodes in the system where all of the knowledge resources tracked by that module are associated. 
     
     
         19 . The community knowledge system of  claim 12  wherein groups may have a profile page which shows aggregate information regarding community involvement by group members as well as community related information from the system related to the group.